Title: Rule of law discourses at the local level: 
Evaluating the impact of Business Rights for the poor

Author: Ana Maria Vargas Falla
PhD Candidate Lund University and University of Milan
Attended IGLP Workshop in Doha, 2013
ana_maria.vargas_falla@soclaw.lu.se

The idea that law is a tool for development was rescued again in the 1990s recognizing the important role of the state and its institutions to achieve economic growth and social improvements. This approach to development is known as ‘the rule of law’ and it was promoted by organizations as the World Bank inside their justice sector reforms programs. However differences in legal cultures and social structures make rule of law discourses very dependent to the context and one can only understand legal change looking at the impact it may have at the local level. This paper is concerned about the impact of business rights for the poor as a discourse promoted by the World Bank and implemented at the local level. The aim is to evaluate the impact of business rights for the urban poor to see whether legal change can be a tool of empowerment to support poverty alleviation strategies.  
The global discourse about the importance of giving property rights and business rights to the poor have become popular in national and international arenas, influenced by the theory of Hernando De Soto ex-member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the poor. This article questions the idea that business rights can empower the poor to become entrepreneurs and instead suggests that laws play a more marginal role. The conclusions of the research are based on 200 interviews among street vendors that were able to legalize their businesses in the city of Bogotá. The rule of law helped the vendors to increase their freedom and to improve their lives because having a legal status provided them with the security that police offices are not going to evict or harass them.  However having business rights had limited effects for poverty alleviation as people are usually engaged in low income business and have difficulties to escape poverty traps.